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Vol.
25 No. 2
March-April 2003
Where
2B &Y |
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Announcements
of conferences, symposia, workshops, meetings, and other
upcoming activities. |
Biophysical
Complexity
2325
April 2003, Southampton, UK
This
conference will bring together researchers in the life sciences
and in the physical sciences to discuss aspects of Biophysics
and Biophysical Chemistry that can contribute to a systems,
or integrative, approach to biological organization and processes.
Topics that are relevant to the meeting include physical architecture
and spatio-temporal organization of nuclei, intracellular
signaling pathways and cell-cell communication, control and
structure of biochemical networks, multi-enzyme complexes,
and physical methods for studying molecular and cellular processes.
A
number of distinguished and innovative scientists from both
the life sciences and the physical sciences will present overviews,
suitable for non-specialists, of areas of research that impact
integrative biology. In addition, contributed short talks
coupled to posters will provide an opportunity for the presentation
of more specialized or detailed material. The invited lectures,
together with the contributed talks and posters, are intended
to stimulate and inform discussion during the extended poster
sessions.
The
theme of the conference is particularly timely as systems
biology initiatives are developing in a number of countries.
In the USA, systems biology is a rapidly expanding area of
cross-disciplinary research, while in Europe, Germany has
announced a systems biology initiative. In the UK, the Biotechnology
& Biological Sciences Research Council has identified
systems biology as one of its four priority areas for the
coming decade.
The
relative lack of opportunities for communication between the
physical sciences and the life sciences communities poses
a significant barrier to the growth of this cross-disciplinary
area of science. Physical chemistry is at a particular disadvantage
in the current move towards systems biology. This is because
much of the immediate emphasis is either on technologies for
genomics and proteomics, or on the application of control
engineering to biochemical and genetic networks. However,
chemists, and in particular physical chemists, will be central
to the continued growth of the life sciences in the post-genomic
era because of their uniquely broad discipline base, detailed
understanding of molecular/macromolecular properties, and
their training in quantitative model building. It is one of
the objectives of this meeting to encourage delegates to identify
areas of collaboration across scientific and national boundaries.
See
Calendar for contact information
www.complexity.soton.ac.uk
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modified 6 March 2003.
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